Mobile-Ready Technology, a Key Enabler for MFI Operations

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The most recent development in the FinTech space has been mobile-ready solutions, which have been one of the greatest ever disruptors of this industry - in a good way. Since the beginning of early 2019, industries around the world have been engaged in a constant grind to develop technologies that are mobile compatible and the wave has finally reached the shores of fintech.

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Thus, if you are a microfinance company and are looking to optimize your operations in the future with your microfinance banking software, then this article is for you.

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What Is Mobile-Ready Technology?

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The first and most important aspect for us to understand before we dive into the advantages of using mobile-ready technology in MFI operations is to better grasp the meaning of the term. To put it simply, technology ready to be deployed on a mobile interface is said to be Mobile-ready.

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This leads us to the next question –

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How Can Mobile-Ready Technology Streamline Your MFI Operations?

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Microfinance, which involve giving out loans to individual consumers in a group, generally involve 2 types of field executives. For Loan Origination, sales executives who reach out to customers to educate and on-board them and secondly, collection and repayment executives who are tasked with the collection of timely repayments.

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Now, as you are probably aware, most of these executives perform door-to-door operations, thus naturally there is a huge need for mobility.

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Features & Benefits of Mobile-Ready Microfinance Technology

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1. Mobility

The first and most impactful feature of mobile-ready technology solutions is the mobility it offers. Since most executives will need to be on the field and interact with customers, having an application on their smartphones which contains their mandate, list of tasks to complete, customers to meet & more, will be immensely helpful in increasing their productivity.

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With the implementation of wishful design and features like collection of documents, uploading it for approval, eKYC, and vKYC etc. decreases the barrier to quicker client on-boarding and loan disbursement. The mobile application also ensures agile management of the entire operation by senior management, thus further streamlining it.

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2. Focus on Core Operations

The next feature offered by mobile-ready technology is to enable better focus on core operations. With a mobile application present, key stakeholders can allocate specific tasks & operational areas to each field executive, ensuring that there is no overlap.

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A Business Rule Engine will generate unique permissions for each type of executive, a design feature of only showing functions related to specific tasks to specific individuals such that, depending on the task, the options available on the application change. This ensures the field executives can access only tasks assigned to them. They can also operate unencumbered by a host of irrelevant functions as is usual with web applications.

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3. Performance Tracking

Every organization around the world needs an effective way to track key performance of their field executives, and there is no better way to do this for your microfinance operation than with a mobile application.

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With mobile-ready microfinance technology, you can easily and conveniently track key performance metrics of all your field executives, including but not limited to tasks done, tasks pending, efficiency, geo-tagging, physical distance travelled and more – customizable microfinance software would allow for creation of custom metrics/KPI (Key Performance Indicators) which would be a huge help to implementation of the solution in the organization.

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4. Improved Customer Experience

One common goal shared by every microfinance company is to offer a delightful experience to all their customers, and this can be achieved exceptionally through mobile-ready microfinance technology solution.

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Microfinance technology in the form of mobile applications for field executives can come feature-packed with services like eKYC, vKYC, digital payment collection, digital customer & lead origination, digital client on-boarding as well as online credit checks done via API integrations, which makes sure that the turnaround time to on-board new clients & disbursement of loans is drastically reduced, thus paving the way for an improved customer experience.

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5. Quicker Disbursement

A common concern shared by most end customers is that lending institutions often take too long to disburse the loan amount, thus leading to unnecessary delays. Traditionally, customer verifications and checking creditability used to take long, thus delaying the loan disbursement process.

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With mobile-ready technology, your MFI application can be easily integrated with Credit Bureau APIs as well as internal scorecards, allowing for near-immediate and fraud-free origination – even instant disbursement is now possible, right from the field, leveraging ready-to-use Bank APIs. Along with this, if there is a case where approving the customer will require further inquiry, this can be immediately requested from the application, and the concerned stakeholders can take a look at the request immediately, thus reducing the overall approval time significantly.

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6. Increased Reach

Last but not least, since the microfinance application is present in the smartphones of the field executives, they can easily and conveniently foray further into untapped markets, thus increasing the reach and customer base of your organization.

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Conclusion

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According to an article published by GlobeNewswire in April, 2020,

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“The global market for Microfinance is projected to reach US$313.7 billion by 2025, driven by the rising inequality in wealth distribution and the resulting increase in the number of unbanked people. There is an increasing concentration of wealth in the hands a few high-net-worth individuals. Under this scenario, a massive % of population lives below the "International Poverty Line". Micro financing is one of the ways to pull people out of extreme poverty.

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The world’s poorest countries are the top markets for microfinance initiatives. Micro financing provides access to microloans to low-income and poverty-stricken households who are not served by traditional financial systems. In contrast to conventional banks that do not provide loans to people with no or insufficient assets and do not offer microloans, microfinance makes it possible for these individuals to access a loan.

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By 2014, microfinance operations directly benefitted over 130 million people. In addition, over 500 million individuals have been directly and indirectly benefitted from such operations. The access to even a small credit holds potential to end the cycle of poverty by offering opportunities like business, job and education. Families with access to micro financing are unlikely to discontinue education of their children owing to economic reasons.

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In addition, microfinance allows clients to start small businesses, which create new jobs. Microfinance promotes economic development, growth and employment by supporting small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs. Apart from improving living standards of impoverished communities, the concept helps poor in efficiently managing their finances, leveraging economic opportunities and managing risks. Moreover, microfinance operations empower women and may result in more prosperity and stability in families. On the other hand, micro financing is available to just 20% of the 3 billion individuals who qualify as poor.”

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We at AllCloud Enterprise Solutions deeply appreciate the socially driven cause of Microfinance and hope to do our bit by enabling the industry with our end-to-end automated Microfinance Software. To know more, please get in touch with us via email at connect@allcloud.in.